MANILA, Philippines?Warning that it could lead to more ?corruption,? Sen. Joker Arroyo on Sunday urged President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to stop the planned conversion of 750 million sequestered common shares in San Miguel Corp. into non-voting preferred shares.
Arroyo said the President should immediately act to dispel suspicions that she had a hand in the plan, which he described as a ?betrayal? of the law creating the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) and its mandate to prevent corruption.
?A transaction of this size and importance could not have been undertaken by the PCGG without the prior imprimatur of Malacańang,? the senator said.
Corruption
?Whether it had the President?s clearance or not, it would do well for the President to order the PCGG not to pursue this move not only because it is contrary to the intendment of Executive Order 1 ?to prevent the recurrence of corruption,? but more important for her own sake, to relieve her of any criticism that this conversion is corruption within a corruption,? he said.
Arroyo noted that after the revered late President Corazon Aquino came to office in 1986, her very first decree was EO 1 creating the PCGG to recover the ill-gotten wealth stolen during the martial law years.
?The San Miguel case was among the topmost ill-gotten wealth cases, both in size and its immoral dimensions,? he pointed out.
He said EO 1 charged the PCGG to adopt ?safeguards to ensure that the above practices (ill-gotten) shall not be repeated in any manner, under the new government, and the institution of adequate measures to prevent the recurrence of corruption.?
?Stated otherwise, over and above the material recovery of ill-gotten wealth, was the overriding moral message?never again should it happen,? Arroyo said.
Coco farmers
Last month, the Supreme Court allowed the PCGG to proceed with the conversion of sequestered SMC common shares into preferred shares but coconut farmer groups last week filed a motion for reconsideration asking the high tribunal to reverse its ruling.
?Regardless of the Supreme Court?s final decision, if GMA (Ms Arroyo) wants to stop this, she can do it. The PCGG is under her office,? Arroyo said.
He said that instead of asking the high court for permission to convert the shares, the PCGG should have asked the court to decide once and for all on the ownership of the shares since the tribunal had already ruled three years ago that they were ?prima facie public funds.?
Decide ownership
?PCGG, instead of concentrating its efforts on the Supreme Court to finally make up its mind and write finis to this case long mired in a legal battle, which is PCGG?s primary function, has concentrated on tackling an irrelevant issue, which is the least of its concerns?that of converting the disputed shares from common to preferred shares,? Arroyo said.
He said that there was something terribly fishy about the PCGG?s inordinate push for the conversion of approximately 25 percent of San Miguel?s common shares sequestered by the government into preferred shares. ?It is a betrayal of the mandated mission of the PCGG and it?s enabling law,? he said.
